


A Day in the Pegasus Life

by cantarina



Category: Fringe (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stargate Atlantis Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 12:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10217873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantarina/pseuds/cantarina
Summary: It's just an ordinary day exploring the Pegasus Galaxy for Lieutenant Farnsworth and the rest of her Atlantis-based team, so of course nothing goes right at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havocthecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/gifts).



> Originally posted anonymously for the 2012 Fringe Exchange.
> 
> Notes off of the original post:  
> This is more ensemble and less f+f than I expected it to be, but I tried to keep the emphasis on the show's women playing an important role, because hell yes, our Fringe women having adventures in space. I hope you enjoy it!

They don't normally send Doctor Bishop through the Stargate, but they can't always bring the Pegasus Galaxy to him. As Astrid watches Peter help his father into a tac vest, Astrid knows that today is one of those days.

She grabs her gear from the Ancient lockers and starts changing. She looks over to Colonel Dunham. "Last minute change to the mission roster?" She'd thought it would be the usual scientific recon mission; that she and Peter would be doing the leg-work while Dunham and Francis watched their backs.

"Nina decided the potential rewards warranted the added risk of sending Walter along," Dunham says.

"And as we all know, whatever our glorious civilian leader says, goes," replies Peter, tugging at the zipper on Walter's tac vest as he speaks. The zipper is obviously caught on something and Astrid tries not to laugh aloud as Walter goes up on his toes with every tug, his whole body following it like a marionette on strings. He looks every inch like he's stepped out of a cartoon, complete with overwrought cries of distress at the whole procedure. If she were dealing with it, she'd be rolling her eyes just like Peter's doing, but she can smile at it from the outside.

"You'll be doing double-duty, Farnsworth." Francis' grin is sharp but still friendly and he's already fully suited up. "Better hope you can still shoot that gun at a moving target."

"Tell you what, Francis. I'll worry about my performance and you worry about yours."

Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid can see the Colonel's lips flick up into a smile.

*

Of course, it all goes sideways as soon as they step through the Gate, because Pegasus is rarely easy or kind. Instead of stepping out into the green fields of M4J-371, their Ancient ruins half buried but still visible in the distance, AR-1 exits the wormhole back into Atlantis. But one that's not quite right; Astrid can barely recognize the gate room. She and her team are ringed by heavy fortifications that dramatically reshape the space. The light filtering in through the stained glass - and at least those are unchanged, the give-away that this really is the gate room - is oddly red.

"If you're supposed to be our Replicator doubles, you're way off the mark. I'm not even blonde."

The voice carries easily through the space like Astrid's heard it do a thousand times before, but it sounds oddly deadened with the room configured like this. She can't see the speaker, who's got to be behind the barricades, but there's no mistaking it. She's just heard a Colonel Dunham speak.

She follows protocol. Astrid brings up her P90 and in the same movement, puts herself between the familiar-but-not voice and Doctor Bishop. In front of her, she watches Peter, Francis and her Colonel Dunham fan out into a defensive formation. It's only because the Stargate has already thrown endless amounts of weird at her over the years that Astrid stays on mission when her-voice-but-not-her-voice, just as disembodied, answers the other Dunham's challenge.

"There is a higher statistical likelihood that they have arrived through the Stargate from a parallel dimension."

"That's the one," says Peter, loud enough for the hidden commanders of the City to hear. Colonel Dunham adds, "We're not hostile. Our mission parameters were peaceful exploration of abandoned Ancient ruins."

"Atlantis isn't abandoned," not-Dunham shoots back.

"Off-world Ancient ruins."

There's a pause that seems to drag. Astrid never looks over at them directly, but she can see Francis, tense and alert, his face the impassive mask here in the field that he never quite manages at the poker table. To her other side, Peter is just as alert, but unlike Francis, Peter projects a sense of stored energy ready to be set loose.

Standing just ahead of all of them, Colonel Dunham is on point, her face hidden from Astrid. That's alright. Astrid learned to read the set of Dunham's shoulders a long time ago, knows through hard won experience that her CO will throw herself on a grenade for any of them. Then:

"Astrid, give me the odds."

Involuntarily, her eyes flick to not-Dunham's position. The command isn't a familiar one, but the voice and tone are too familiar to deny; whoever is on the other side of that barricade, she can't be all that different from the Colonel Dunham Astrid knows and would follow anywhere.

"The workstation is still undergoing repairs after the last attack. I have insufficient data to make any reliable predictions."

Astrid imagines she can hear the gears turning in not-the-Colonel's head. Then there's the sound of something shifting behind the barricade and a panel is dragged back. A woman with red hair in the same, if more tattered, uniform as they all wear steps into view. Even with bangs growing into her eyes - and how the hell was that anything resembling regulation - the face was unmistakably familiar.

"Here's how it's going to go," says the other Colonel Dunham. "If you're hostile, we shoot you down. You look twice at our supplies, we shoot you down. You leave your weapons and tac vests by the gate. If you're on the level, we'll see what we can do to help you get home."

Well, thinks Astrid as her own Colonel Dunham reluctantly gives the order for them to disarm themselves, no one has ever called life in the Pegasus Galaxy boring.


End file.
